December 2013 LSAT Info Post

The curve was one of the most generous in a while, meaning that the questions were fairly difficult. Here’s a look at the curve:

-14 for a 170

-29 for a 160

-46 for a 150

Scores should be still rolling out now, as we speak. Feel free to use the comments of this post to vent and discuss how the test went. I’ll be around tonight to answer questions. Just please, don’t talk in detail about the content of individual LSAT questions (we get in trouble for that).

I hope that you guys had some good news today!

***UPDATE*** 7:40 PM

Here is a photo of the conversion table for the December 2013 LSAT:

The December 2013 LSAT is coming for you. We’ll update this post to discuss all things December 2013 LSAT as they unfold: which section was likely the experimental, which sections, if any, were abnormally difficult, etc.

The email score release date is set at January 6th as of now, however, they usually beat the scheduled date by a few days. I would expect scores around the 3rd of January.

Like last time, you’ll be able to vent here if your score was sub par and, as always, Josh and I are here to provide advice. Just say whatever you need to say in the comments. It can be anonymous.

I hope LSAT prep didn’t ruin your peace of mind too much over Thanksgiving. You are going to feel nervous in the coming days. That’s completely normal. If you are completely calm and collected, you might be one of those very low anxiety types, commonly called psychopaths. That’s okay too. You’ll probably have a long and successful career in the law.

For everyone, here is some past advice that should help you navigate the next week:

Now, as the test approaches, it’s important now to have faith in your abilities. The test you take on Saturday, December 7th is going to be more or less the same as all the practice tests that you’ve taken up until now. Just trust your skills and you’ll be fine.

The test doesn’t appear to have had any single thing that people found extremely difficult (i.e. no game that is going to become notorious, like the mauve dinosaurs). Difficulty was fairly well balanced among the sections.

It looks like the scored LG section was generally considered harder than average. A lot of people were dismayed because there was an experimental games section that was significantly easier than the scored one.

RC doesn’t seem to have been too crazy. The passages were interesting which often helps.

LR seems to have been a mixed bag. A lot of people describe one section being slightly harder, but nothing too terrible.

UPDATE: Which section was experimental on the December 2013 LSAT?

(Disclaimer: I’m cobbling this info together from other takers, so I can’t truly verify it. If you know anything here isn’t correct, please say so in the comments)

From what I can glean, if you had two RC sections, the one with a passage about paternalism was the experimental. The one with mirrors and chairs was real.

The real LG section had games about discussed books, museum entrances, and online gaming. Trees, salaries and magazine features was experimental.

If you had three LR sections, then I have no idea which was experimental.

UPDATE: Weather Cancellations

As some of you know, testing was cancelled due to weather conditions at a good number of places. In response, Harvard has decided to accept February LSATs for admission this coming fall. The following is an excerpt from an email:

I expect most schools will follow in Harvard’s footsteps (note that most schools do already except February LSAT scores whether or not it’s their policy to do so, given that so few people are applying to law school).

If you are curious about a school’s individual policy, contact them. I have made a list in the past of schools’ policies on the February LSAT, but my guess is that there has been enough flux lately that that list isn’t very helpful. Basically though, everyone is accepting Feb LSATs.

Good luck to those taking the postponed test tomorrow or in the coming days. That’s a hard thing to have to go through. Stay positive! Just remember, the test will not be any more difficult just because it’s at a weird time.

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41 Comments

I Scored a 165 with a -9 on 5th section Reading Comp. Missed 4 on games-two of which were on easy first game. I was PTing in the 166-170 range. In your experience, can you see significant improvement in one month (looking to take Feb test) for someone who has already studied extensively. Thanks for all your help!

Good score Ben. You can certainly sign up for the Feb LSAT and give it a try, but in my experience the odds are against you to see any kind of significant improvement from your practice average in that brief space. Is that a pretty typical score for you? If you usually do 2-3 points better than a 165 on PTs, then a retake in Feb would be fine. There, you would just be trying to actually hit your PT average this time around. Read our post on retaking: https://lawschooli.com/should-i-retake-the-lsat/

Thanks for the reply Evan. I usually do 3-4 points better, and anxiety/endurance were both major issues for me heading into the test (I was recovering from lingering post concussion effects). Since I canceled the first time around, I only have one more chance at it, but I have plenty of time to study the next month so I’m torn on whether I should go all out for the February exam or pace myself for June. Thanks again!

I took it on Sunday in China. Someone told me that they make the tests more difficult in China/Asia – at least the games section. I wonder if there is any truth to that.
My experimental section was LG. I’ve heard that it’s more likely that the experimental section is in the first three? I don’t think any section stood out as being particularly hard, and in the second LG section I was able to prepredicted the question about “if we remove this rule and add another rule which would give us the same result” before i saw the question…but now I can’t remember what each individual section was about really.

I assure you that’s just a rumor. LSAC is nothing if not fair. It’s their stated aim to make the test equally difficult each and every time, and they do a pretty great job. Though the tests have gotten harder very gradually over time, each administered in a given year should be very comparable, so getting a 172 on the test you took should be exactly as difficult as getting a 172 on the tests over here.

Also, that second piece of information used to be true, but now it’s outdated. They are just as likely to put the experimental anywhere now.

Basically, don’t worry about it all now. What you score is what you score. Is your test disclosed? If so you’ll be able to sort out what you did well on later when they give you the test back. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

So I retook my LSAT this past Saturday… I’m not entirely sure if I really did well enough to see a huge increase in points. Would law schools look unfavorable upon, say like 1 or 2 pt increase? What if I end up getting the same score I got as last time? Would that look really bad? I’ve been kinda stressing over this.

I am currently on week 4 of the study schedule. I have been able to get mistakes down to 5 or 6 per LR section, a -1 to -5 range per RC section, and 0-1 per LG section(by doing proper setups, deductions, scenarios rather than trial and error). The study schedule states I should be doing timed questions. Based on the amount of errors I am making, should I continue doing untimed work this week before moving onto timed questions and sections or should I go straight to timed questions? I want to stay on schedule and get the full benefits of it but at the same time I don’t want to rush things if doing so will be harmful to my progress.

For the timed questions in general, is the timing merely to see how fast I am doing the problems with maximum accuracy or should I start trying to do the problems as fast as possible within the time limit

SO here is my situation. I took the test in october and got a 158. I’m taking it again because I made a stupid LG mistake and messed up an entire game. My average practice test was a 164 and in each case I did best on LG, then LR, and I always missed about 5-8 on RC. Now as I’m studying again my practice score has been extremely consistent (164 for the past 5 or 6 tests) but the score on the individual sections are a little wild. For example on the most recent practice test I took my RC score was 25/26, LRs 19/26, and LG 17/23. All of a sudden my RC got good, my LR got worse, and my LG went from 2 questions wrong to an average of 5. Am I doing something wrong? I ran out of more recent practice tests so I’ve been using the ones from the 1999-2001 so could that be the reason??

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to reply. I’ve been on vacation following Thanksgiving. Did you take the test today? To you and others: don’t worry about lack of consistency on different sections, worry only about your overall score for each practice test. They balance section difficulty differently on each test, so one might have a hard lg and an easy rc for example, whereas another test will have an easy lg… etc. etc.